The storm barrier collapsed, then reformed upside down. The platform split. Gravity flipped in chaotic pulses. The Vault Lord now hung upside down, and Leon floated weightlessly, tethered only by momentum and instinct.
Roman screamed from across the vault, "HE'S GOING ABSOLUTE—INVERTING ALL SPACE-TIME IN THE CORE ZONE!"
The Vault Lord charged—its final blow was a condensed gravity inversion sphere, capable of rewinding space in a 10-meter radius.
Leon let go.
He allowed himself to fall into the vortex. Not resisting.
Echofang shrank to gauntlet mode. Shell Reverb pulsed.
Then—the moment before the impact, Leon fired a pulse:
Karmic Loop + Absolute Return + Recoil Pulse.
The strike absorbed the inversion. Echoed it. Reversed it.
The Vault Lord's attack hit its own core, fed by Leon's counter-tempo.
BOOM.
The explosion shattered the sky platform in a ring of golden-blue stormlight. The entire vault rippled with dissonant pulses—until it finally stilled.
